All the Pleasures Proved
by Acey Dearest
Summary: Come lay with me and be my love, at least until all the time-worn remedies and treatments finally fail. Raphael's moral degradation over the centuries as he moves from lover to lover. Raphael/various. Formatting issues corrected.


"All the Pleasures Proved"

by Acey

**Warnings/Etc.:** Implied, but not overly explicit sex. Some slash, mentions of suicide, mentions of abortion. Years ago, prompt challenge lists were king, and one that cropped up fairly frequently was the "five things (or seven, or ten) that didn't happen to X/five people X didn't love/etc." So, five people Raphael didn't love, and one he might have.

_to some we seem like colder creatures, well  
we were warm until we went to hell_ -the hush sound, "hourglass"

i.

Your first love and perhaps your last is blue. It's the one love you never act on until it's far too late, and by then your want has warped into something crueler than you ever imagined.

But it's a simple love at first, borne of nothing but fondness. You're the same age and she is pretty, pretty-haired and pretty-eyed and blue, always blue, always sad.

You're gentle then, gentle enough you can't imagine much more than taking her hand sometime between classes. But even that thought disturbs you because you are young and foolish, and sin seems to creep along every doorway, beckoning with decrepit, crumpled fingers. Love is never innocent.

She's too pure to ever really love you, and at the time, that's yet another point in her unfailing favor. Jibril understands what you do not. She knows what separates angels from men.

You keep white lilies in vases, and her picture on your dresser. When you grow up, you deny them both; when she grows up, she denies you.

ii.

"I've had a look at your file," you say, the imperious tone forced by circumstance. It's a veneer now, but someday it might be more. "It's quite impressive."

It is impressive. Half a dozen commendations during the war, exceptional skills behind the front lines. She had been captured once by the devils, along with half her platoon. She'd slit her one captor's throat with the knife in her ring, and shot the other, returning to their encampment with her platoon and virtue intact.

You awarded her medal personally, knowing you could never have managed it.

"Thank you, sir."

Formality. You're drowning in it. You can't manage to look Barbiel in the face and your gaze sinks lower, down that smooth, pale neck, down that blouse to the swells of her breasts.

You hate yourself a little more for it. You never knew how easy it was to succumb until you sunk, the weight of your own sins dragging you down into the mud. You hate the picture playing in your mind, the easy, almost relaxing thought- _there, that's what_ should _be, every piece in its proper frame as God intended_, there, _that's what I wanted, not that creature, not_ her-

You want to hate Barbiel, though. For her smile, for her red hair, for her utter _professionalism_. For being a woman, a competent woman.

For being _her_ replacement, for being a reminder for the rest of your career of your first deputy's failure and your own ruin.

It's ten years before you fuck her, half in an effort to wipe even some of that away.

iii.

You consider it sometimes, in a flat, abstracted way. Taking a man on, trying it out. A pretty-eyed wretch of an Ion makes the suggestion first, as though you hadn't thought of it before. She's drunk on your wine, head lolling in your lap. It's still a century before you find someone you think might merit the chance.

His name is Jophiel.

He's all sharp edges, from the stubble on his chin his razor didn't quite catch to the slight, bony jut of his hips. He's beautiful in that stupid, delicate way all cherubim seem to be.

Bedding him is never quite a disappointment, and you're a little disgusted at yourself for that realization. It reminds you too much of _her_ and that woman on the desk; they have names for that, down below in Assiah. But pleasure's pleasure, your body doesn't distinguish between the caresses of the girls and Jophiel's agonizingly shy touches, as though he's afraid you'll crumble to pieces on the bed.

It's just-

It's just not enough. There's no satisfaction- you'd thought, you'd hoped there might be and so you had set up the chase carefully. It had been your most subtle courtship. You invited him to lunch with you. Singled him out to take on projects, wrote recommendations to his direct superiors. Spared him a smile. He was overwhelmed, dazzled, even. Taken with you, with what was left of you.

It's just that once you have him, it doesn't _matter_ the way the women do. Degrading him is thoughtless, casual. Meaningless. Every moan, every noise he makes, on your bed, against your wall- they're hollow victories. He's only another crowning example of your own excess. He's not different; he's not better, and he's not an escape. In some ways, he's worse.

"Lord Raphael."

When Jophiel says your name his voice is always soft, with that maddening deferential note. His tone hasn't changed since before you singled him out, as though his throat hasn't quite caught up with his brain, like a television recording that's gone out of synch.

"I need to shower. I'm due for a meeting with Sevothtarte soon. Care to join me?"

"No." He hasn't yet gotten up from the bed. His face constricts, cheeks flushing as if this is the first invitation you've ever given him. "I-I've been thinking, lately."

"About?"

"I... you visited the academy when I was a senior, do you remember? It was a few years after the first war."

"I remember that the administration didn't want me to come." Your own tone isn't as light as you mean it to be. Your eyes are on the communication screen across from the bed- it's off every time Jophiel's over. You've toyed with making a suicidal game of that, even, your fingers itching for the remote, wondering if that would finally bring a thrill to any of this.

"You gave a speech about vice."

"I gave a lot of speeches about vice, once."

"It was a good one."

You exhale.

"You need to get cleaned up. Come on."

"I'm not finished yet." He swallows. "You weren't very earnest at first. But there for a second, I remember... your voice broke and I thought- they're wrong, they've been wrong all this time about him. I thought, _he means it, he's been true to us all along_."

"Naive of you."

"But, Lord Raphael- you still believe, don't you? You must or you wouldn't be here."

"I didn't have an alternative."

"Then I've never felt sorrier for anyone."

"Why?" and you laugh but half of it gets choked. You're glancing at the ornate clock on your mantel. If you flew it would take forty minutes. An airship, twenty. Sevothtarte doesn't need you for another four hours. "People have a habit of causing their own miseries. I'm no different."

"Lord R-"

"_Stop_ it."

"No." You lift your head in sudden, vague interest at the word. Jophiel's never argued with you before at any length, always cowed into silence by his own inflated opinion of you, the moth-eaten velvet of your reputation. "You don't understand."

You break it off three months later.

iv.

Half of your patients- your real ones- you can't cure. That's a secret you and the rest of your staff hide under piles of prescriptions and diagnostic tests. The women come to you with migraines, mouth sores, bloating, reflux- no root cause. None at all.

An angel's immune system is typically hardy against all but the worst viruses and bacteria. The first few weeks you spent working at the hospital, as an intern, you mentioned that to a colleague, who rolled his eyes.

"What's in your head ends up in your gut. Sure, they're sick. Mentally. Give them an antidepressant."

You ignored him, sure of yourself and your professional duty, back in those days. You had a litany of antispasmodics and antibiotics. Diet changes. Vitamin injections- in desperation, you eventually set up a few counseling sessions. It never mattered; the patients never improved, and by the time you're heading the hospital, the antidepressants are standard procedure. You barely put your hand to their foreheads anymore.

Innovation is difficult when you're acclimatized to your own treatments. You spend more time on your back these days, meting out your own addled prescriptions, counting your progress by gasps on the exam table. You've made a game out of your own symptom relief and extended it to each of your patients. Clinical trials without a control group.

Barbiel's handing you off a few files when you get the call. It's almost your lunch break- you usually let the machine get it, at this point, but you're feeling generous today, sated. There was a nurse slyly under your desk for the last half-hour.

"Raphael of the Virtues speaking."

"I need to talk to you."

"You can schedule an appointment at your convenience with me or any of the staff."

"_Please._"

"Are you in dire need?" Your tone is light. Sevotharte's been tapping your phone line for years, though you're sure he sees through every vapid code word and wallows in disgust.

"Yes. I-I need you specifically, sir."

"Of course."

"Immediately."

You're rifling through your schedule before she's gotten the word out. You're booked after lunch, but a scribbled note to Barbiel and the other nurses to take care of your next two appointments should solve that easily enough. You can hear the girl clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth over the phone as you write- and that, finally, conjures up a flimsy memory. Not of the girl's face but of where you both were, there in her dingy candidate dorm, with the sound of that annoying nervous tic that only stopped when you put your lips to hers.

It's been two months since you last saw her.

"Can you come in half an hour? I'm sorry, I have a few matters to attend to."

"I-yes, sir."

"Excellent. I'll see you soon." It's not until after you've hung up that you realize you don't remember her name.

Lunch is hard to force down, sticking to your throat somehow. Food has never been one of your vices, and half the time you only eat sandwiches and sodas- but an intern's hopelessly vying for your favor, so your plate's piled with homemade curry you force down like arsenic while everyone else raves. Barbiel cracks a joke in the breakroom, something about there never being enough exam table paper, and you barely manage a rueful grin. You're itching for a cigarette, and you walk out of lunch five minutes early only to see that girl standing at the reception desk.

You only half-remember her face once you've seen it again. Teased pinkish hair, wide green eyes. A round, soft face. Her shoulders are slumped, those eyes darting by each of your office doors in turn, but at least she's controlled herself enough to stop clicking her tongue now. You bring her into your office instead of an exam room, as if you don't already have a decent guess at what she wants.

The feeds are all off, the curtains drawn. Even your phone's unplugged. If you're wrong, none of it will matter- but you aren't.

"I'm pregnant."

"I'll take care of it." Your own words are smooth. Confident. They don't betray your revulsion anymore.

"No. I don't- want you to." Her face constricts and you try again to remember her name.

"I understand," but you don't. You always have offered; you're usually refused. You don't think it's to spare you at all, shear off any misplaced sentimentality. It's as if letting you perform the surgery makes the experience too stark for them. "I'll have one of my nurses take care of it for you."

"No. You see, I... I want to keep it."

You stare at her.

"You must think I'm crazy."

"You're being extremely foolish." There's a strain in your voice that you catch for just a second.

"I know. I-I wanted to kill myself at first. I tried," and she laughs bitterly, "but I stopped short. I figured if I did, they'd find the embryo. God, it's no good, any of it. Is it, sir?"

"You can't keep it and expect to stay in Lakia."

"I _don't_."

"You're an educated woman. You know what you'd give up by allowing this to continue." At long last you remember her name. Haniel, of the Thrones.

"Allowing my child to live." She looks faintly bewildered by her own words. "But it's my body, isn't it? Even if it's wrong, even if it's damaged. It might not be, some of them are all right. So it should-should be my choice, if I want you to take it out of me or bear it myself-"

"It may be your body, but both our lives are at stake, Haniel. I won't be intimidated into any agreements with you."

"I'm not here to blackmail you. I just wanted you to know." She tries to smile. "I'm not the first one, am I?"

"No."

You're not sure why you don't give her the lie.

"I didn't think I was." Haniel's tongue clicks against the roof of her mouth again. "You give yourself away, sir. You weren't surprised by anything I said."

"Haniel-"

"Everything's in order. I got my discharge papers from my unit already. I-I cleaned out my bank account. Everything's in order," she repeats, and you turn around, to jerk open a drawer of your filing cabinet, and pull out a fat envelope, press it into her hand.

"You'll need this."

"I-I said I wasn't here to-"

"_Take_ it."

You never see her again.

Later you approve a grant Jibril's hounded you about for years now, authorizing inoculations for the Ions, expressly against Sevothtarte's orders. A great victory, Jibril says, and she even has dinner with you for your defiance, her sad blue eyes suddenly alight and hopeful. That night the eyes you dream about are red.

v.

You still go to the worshipper's hall. Jophiel was right about you; for all your sins, your quarrel isn't with God. You still believe, though that's not why you come.

A millenia, two millenia since Belial, and you remain barred from participating in the services, but you creep inside afterwards to dream, passing up the pews and scriptures. Instead, you sit on the worn wooden bench at the front of the hall and play all the old songs on the organ in a tired bid to feel anything.

These days the music is the only thing that helps. Your own orgasms have gone from a bore to a joke. It doesn't matter how many women you bed or what depravities you try to enjoy. It doesn't matter if you're alone. The physical sensation is automatic and unfailing, but the mental pleasure has vanished utterly.

You can barely feel at _all_ now, and that's what scares you, what keeps you coming back over and over, vying for that one sound of something better in the music you play, that note to bring back all that was good. The gentility of that old world, where your wants were simple and naive and you were warm with a love you never expressed. You were never pure, not even then, but you weren't _this_.

And so when you're at your most desperate, most dull, someone like that first love comes to quicken your pulse one last time. Sara Mudou, her reincarnation. A human.

Lesser angels have lost their bodies over what you want from her. You gamble everything like a madman: high treason for a taste of her lips. It's all so dashing, terribly romantic in a way that fascinates you, honestly fascinates you, because for the first time, the gestures aren't empty. You're revived. You're making plans, wild, dreamy ideas that ought to nauseate you but only manage to when you're away from her and you realize exactly how useless they all are.

Zaphkiel is dead, Sevothtarte gone, all his soldiers in frenzied disarray while Rosiel sits smirking, with Lucifer no more than a barely-chained animal by his side. The Messiah has arrived in as lackluster a fashion as you ever expected. Sara's only a girl among all that insanity, a selfish girl in love with her brother- and you're sicker still for wanting her.

You can't pin your life on her, but you try. And it's only when you fail that you realize all the pleasures proved and all the bastards borne were the only legacies you had to give.

finis


End file.
